


Glowy Lights and Shiny Things

by boxparade



Series: Tomorrow Never Comes [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Crossover, Drabble, Gen, POV Outsider, Science Bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-21
Updated: 2012-06-21
Packaged: 2017-11-08 05:42:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxparade/pseuds/boxparade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney and Tony are totally science bros. They just don't know it yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glowy Lights and Shiny Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [el_gilliath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_gilliath/gifts).



> There will totally be more Rodney & Tony: Science Bros, but probably in the main fic.

Steve doesn’t know what the hell he just walked into, but it’s some sort of stand-off. Tony is looking wind-blown and a little worse for wear, panting for breath, dressed in the strange uniforms he sees some people here wear when they go through the ring…thing. If Tony went off-base without his permission he’s going to _kill him,_ but that’s later. Right now, it looks like the balding science guy is about to go off like a rocket, looking just as out-of-breath and mussed up as Tony is. They blast out of the infirmary like it's on fire, and then they just stop, dead in their tracks, and turn to each other.

Steve intends to intervene, but before he can, the guy who isn’t Tony—Steve remembers his name as Rodney, because it sounds like Rhodey—opens his mouth.

“Ooh, look at me, look at me!” He says, flapping his hands about effeminately. “I have a glowy light in my chest that gets me _shot at_ by crazy natives.”

Shot at? Oh, hell, Steve is definitely going to have to talk to Tony, because it seems like he’s going off-base without his suit, which, for Tony, is like jumping off a skyscraper and aiming for a net the size of a hat.

Not to mention, he thinks he might just give this Rodney a talking-to, because the last time anyone called Tony’s reactor a “glowy light” (or something similar), he’s pretty sure he walked into the kitchen of the tower to discover that they no longer had a ceiling. Or stories 25-34.

But Tony is quick to rebuff, making a similar motion with his hands as he narrows his eyes.

“Ooh, look at me, look at me! I can steal a glorified _battery_ from some backwoods aliens while they stare at the glowy light.”

And now they’re stealing? From _aliens?_ (And they’re stealing batteries? He knows that the little ree-motes for the television need those, but he hasn’t seen all that many televisions around here, so he didn’t know they were in such dire need of batteries…)

There’s a mounting silence then, as Tony and Rodney stare at each other, Rodney’s face getting significantly redder, and Tony’s chin sticking up farther and farther until it almost looks humorous. Steve just blinks between the two of them, a silent observer, waiting for whatever is going to happen next, because by now he’s learned when to leave things alone when they’re entirely out of his hands.

Most days, everything ‘Tony’ tends to fall under that category.

Then, Rodney seems to break first, or maybe it’s Tony who breaks, but either way, Rodney speaks and asks “Uranium core?”

“Vibranium,” Tony replies succinctly, looking Rodney up and down as if searching for some sort of character trait. “Subspace pocket?” He asks.

“Zero point energy portal,” Rodney responds, and Steve blinks.

“Wouldn’t that need a—” Tony starts, but Rodney cuts in,

“—containment field, yeah, but everything we’ve used erodes because of the—”

“—vibrational energy, of course!” Tony finishes excitedly, “Given enough heat, force, and time, most elements would. But vibranium—”

Rodney snaps his fingers, pointing at Tony. “completely absorbs vibration! And you—”

“—know how to synthesize it, yeah,” Tony grins, bright and wide, and with little more than a glimmer in their eyes, they’re both rushing down the corridor, headed toward Rodney’s lab. Both men are talking with their hands, gesturing excitedly and throwing ideas back and forth so quickly that Steve doesn’t think even Bruce could keep up, and Bruce is a ‘science bro’ or whatever it is Tony calls them.

Steve just shakes his head, chalks up the entire encounter to Things About the 21st Century that He Will Never Understand, and heads for the gym. Sheppard said yesterday that he found some sort of Ancient punching bag that he wants to see if Steve can break, and Steve can honestly say he’s been looking forward to some good, old-fashioned anger management.

He’s got a bone to pick with this galaxy—as if technology weren’t difficult enough to work, now it only works if you’re part alien. At this point, he’s tempted to throw it all into the ocean for all the good it’s done him, but he suspects Tony—and Rodney—would have something to say about that.

So he leaves it be, and shares stories instead with Teyla. She, at least, knows the value of a good cup of tea in the morning.


End file.
